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 A baseball twist, of course.  You (Nate or I) yell "go", and throw the ball to the guy standing at the end of the slide, who tries to tag the sliding "runner" out.  Fun, fun, fun… until someone gets "out" too many times.  :)

Some of the latest:  

dragging the stool to retrieve "mom put this out of my reach" items; 

rinsing his own hair; 

and still being happy with mosquito bites so swollen it looks like someone punched him in the eye.   (Yes, mosquito bites courtesy of the abandoned camping trip.)   

Nate had two weekdays in a row off and the night in between it actually wasn't supposed to rain (like every other time he had off the past month!) and so we thought we could find a camping spot… well, it was about 95* and SO humid and even the camp host looked at us like we were a little crazy when we arrived… Trying to make the best of the heat, and the masses of flies, and the very hungry mosquitos, we built a fire, made dinner, and waited for it to cool off as night came on.  And waited, and waited, and finally at 9:30 with the poor kids sweating like crazy in the tent and Carter begging to go home, we packed up by firelight (yes, forgot all of our flashlights!) and were out of there by 10.  We sat on the couch in our cool, air conditioned basement and ate DQ cake and I have never been so happy to have abandoned a vacation.  :)  If you needed proof that it was really that miserable (and that we are not just whimpy!), here is a picture of the kiddos as we abandon camp.  

 

 So Zach re-discovered our ipod, and having charged it, he was ready to "exercise like Dad".  Which meant Emma had to exercise "like Mom".  Which meant that I didn't really get any exercise for our morning walk.  I was highly entertained, however, by their enthusiasm… and by their desire for pictures to document it (Zach had me take a whole bunch of him stretching…) and by the fact that Emma tried over and over again to get into Zach's pictures just to bother him (which worked quite well.) 

First, my funny blanket-wearing kids.  They are always wrapping their blankets around themselves and walking around.  

And then a little art from church.  Carter was especially proud of his "funny face", and was hilarous making all the "faces" from his lesson – sad, mad, and scared all looked the same (see photo below), only "happy" was a HUGE grin.   I told him to go hang his picture up on the fridge, and he was so proud to have done it, and the way he did it was so cute, that I had to take a picture.  (And then Emma wanted me to take a picture of HER picture, too.)  Hey, we are in the business of making everybody happy.  :)

 And miraculously enough, everyone (including Carter!) fell asleep without incident.  He was so happy to go to sleep on the floor with the big kids… and never realized I moved him into his crib 45 minutes later.  

We've been taking turns picking our tomatoes as they ripen… this day we were particularly lucky to have 3 to pick, so everyone got a turn!  

 

Can you tell the family went to Toy Story 3?  (Thanks, Grandma…)  We all enjoyed it… Carter actually sat totally mesmerized during the whole thing.  He loves "lightBuzz" and whenever I take him out of his high chair says, "dinfinity and deyond!"  Super cute.

So, what makes a good season?  At the end of it all, Zach had worked hard, listened to his coaches, been a good sport, and had fun.  According to Nate and I, that makes a good season.  It didn't hurt that he hit well (more than a couple doubles, and even a triple…) and played good in the field, and got to play catcher with all his gear on for almost every game the second half of the season.  It was so fun to watch him play… and to watch everyone else's reactions to his intensity (especially when he was flashing signs to the other coaches while they were pitching to their players.)  He is our all-star – and by all of our standards, he had a GREAT season! 

I am now officially an entire month behind on the blog.  I think I've been spending more time enjoying summer and less time writing about it.  I wouldn't care except that this is my only semblance of 1. a journal and 2. a scrapbook.  So while it may look like there's nothing new, if you're curious about my efforts to catch up, scroll down!  If I am making any progress, you just may find something that wasn't there before.  :)